The invention concerns a method for the removal of tattoos and skin discolouration as well as a removal fluid for use in this method.
For thousands of years, people have been tattooing themselves for many reasons. Only in the last few years were increasingly modern techniques used and developed which opened up new opportunities for artistic expression to the artists and therefore, the tattooed. In the last decade, tattoo fashions have experienced unimaginable evolution and momentum because the elites (artists, athletes and musicians), partially excessively, are using the tattoo as self-expression. Tattoos are becoming increasingly more colourful, larger and more artistic. Coloured pigments are also being utilised for beautification, lip augmentation, permanent make-up and scalp micropigmentation.
In the last few years, you might have also spotted some new fashions. There has long been a trend in the industry to replace an unwanted, or rather a non-professionally made, tattoo with another. Equally as often, a small part of a tattoo or permanent make-up will be completely or partially corrected. A further market is the removal of so-called ‘Dark Spots’, colloquially referred to as sunspots or liver spots.
Consequently, there is a great need for tattoo removal procedures. Different removal techniques are known.
Dermabrasion is already an aged technique, which nevertheless had to be performed by a doctor up until a few years ago. In the process, the skin (epidermis and dermis to several millimeters deep) is removed layer by layer with mostly technical implements or with a surgical raspatory. In addition to the healthy skin, affected tissue is also removed.
The skin abrasions resulting from the removal rarely heal up without extensive scarring. In some cases the skin has to be sewn back together which leaves behind obvious surgical scars.
During the excision, residues in the skin area are excised by way of a surgical operation performed by doctors. This way, larger areas can also be removed. It has to be healthy skin that is taken from another part of the body, partly through additional operations, to be used at this point. In the process, the skin is cut open deeply as part of an operation, which leads to a clearly visible and often extensive scar.
By far, the most commonly used tattoo removal method today is by laser. In the course of this, a split second focussed light energy is shot onto the skin that breaks the residues into small fragments but leaves the tissue undamaged. This happens because the high-energy light, which has to be matched exactly to the absorption spectrum for the residue, triggers an explosion effect. The high energy causes them to explode and could heat the residues very quickly up to 900°. The small particles which are left behind (predominantly nanoparticles) are either pressed into a deeper layer of skin, are absorbed by the lymph or blood system and carried away, or they remain less visible, because they are smaller, situated in the layers of the skin until the next treatment, when they are exploded again and once more made smaller.
Laser is of limited suitability for the removal of tattoos and requires years of experience and lots of specialist knowledge. Many parameters of the equipment have to be in alignment for correct treatment. Laser treatment can lead to skin reddening, and sometimes also severe pain, blister formation and crusty areas. It can create burn scars, hypertrophic scars and keloids. Through the heat build-up, partially carcinogenic new chemical bonds emerge from the ink molecules. Through the shredding of the dye pigments to nanoparticles, medically dangerous impurities get into the lymph and blood systems, the extent and severity of whose negative side effects on the health of the skin and the entire organism are as yet not fully researched.
For many decades, tattooists and beauticians have experimented with the removal of liver spots and tattoos with creams that contain various ingredients. These are administered as a lotion or paste. Through repeated use, dermal applications of the product should lead to a washed out appearance that eliminates the pigment's stain. However, significant removals of tattoos are therefore barely possible because the various layers of the skin act as a sufficiently solid barrier, that substances can hardly penetrate, but, equally as unlikely, that substances can leave the body through the undamaged skin.
In U.S. Pat. No. 8,663,162, a tattoo removal method is described, during which a tattoo removal device is used that introduces lactic acid with a pH less than 1 into the skin with a needle. In the treatment, up to 10 ml of removal fluid is sent from an automatic pump into the needle and directed into the skin opening. An eschar-inducing material is used as a removal fluid.
The company, Tattoo Vanish® Inc., from Las Vegas, USA, removes tattoos through bleaching. Here, the skin is opened to a depth of several millimeters using a micropigmentation device and a salt solution is applied which leads to portions of the ink particles being expelled. The pain of the method is reduced by the use of an anaesthetic. In every case, multiple sessions are necessary for treated sites in order for the bleaching of the tattoo not to appear visible to the eye.
All previously (see above) described, effective methods of tattoo removal, or so-called ‘Dark Spots’ have the disadvantage that the skin must be broken to some depth, so that the dermis, specifically the growth area of the skin, the stratum papillare, can be broken. Depending on the treatment, or type of treatment, the possibility of keloids or hypertrophic scar development is increased.